• With this coalition, certain things are a given. No one is surprised that it would tax your granny. And on past record, one is unsurprised that it should seek to water down the mechanisms for achieving equality. But one can be surprised at one of the more leftwing unions seeking to do much the same. Certainly black and female and gay and lesbian members of the Fire Brigades Union look askance as senior officials move to do away with the hard-won voting rights that were bestowed on "under-represented groups" and to abolish the place reserved for them on the union's executive committee. With a union decision due in June, a protest campaign is under way – and general secretary Matt Wrack is the main target for critics and the black members' group of the TUC. Wrack insists that the move will strengthen "democratic structures", but this is a strange position for a man of the left. Strange times indeed.

• Yes, strange times. What exactly is Alistair Darling up to these days? Eating his fill of rubber chicken it would seem. For according to the register of members interests, the former chancellor received a fee of £15,300 for speaking at an event organised by law firm Linklaters. The gig lasted four hours. That's £3,825 an hour from one of the "magic circle" of City law firms. Magic indeed, for Linklaters did very well out of Labour's PFI privatisation programme. They also did legal work for Lehman Brothers before the bank went bust: notably employing Repo 105, the complex, and quite legal, manoeuvre that allowed ailing Lehmans to book short-term loans from other banks as "sales", in effect disguising billions of dollars of assets. New York's regulators criticised Linklaters for its involvement with Lehman, but this hasn't stopped the law firm doing well from the crisis: recently it pocketed up to £60m advising Lehman's UK administrators, PricewaterhouseCoopers. So, there's plenty of petty cash to throw at the likes of Darling.

• Local election day. The people will speak. And in London, attention will focus not just on the Ken v Boris show, but also on the plight of the man for whom municipal expenses might have been invented: the never under-spent, never under-claimed London Assembly member Brian Coleman. He looks likely to lose his seat in Barnet and Camden, and if that comes to pass, bang goes that assembly money (£53,000), and perhaps his chairmanship of London's fire authority (allowances £26,883); maybe his chairmanship of the Local Government Association's fire services management committee (allowance: £10,365). Less attention, fewer taxis. If you spy him on the London Underground, give him a wave.

• Our tale this week, of the poet/novelist Malcolm Lowry accidently killing a young boy's pet rabbit and then hurrying away to secretly dispose of the evidence, brings forth another account of tragedy involving a small animal and a giant man of letters. The "antihero," in this case, says reader James Lawson, was Andrew McLaren Young, professor of fine art at the University of Glasgow. He had a big reputation. He was a big guy. "Called to evaluate a painting owned by a grand lady of the West End [of Glasgow], he was shown by the maid into the drawing room. He chose a sofa, sat down and realised that he had overlooked the Pekinese. It was quite dead. He put it in his briefcase, gave the owner his opinion of her picture, and left." This may have been the case. It may be a terrible slur, but therein lies a warning to all who have small pets. If David Starkey comes to call, stash Fido somewhere safe.

• Finally, it's bad enough that once again we have to listen to Tony Blackburn telling of his prodigious numbers of "lovers" – up from his previous declared tally of 250 to about 500. One expects it from him perhaps. But now Michael Gove, the education secretary, is also counting notches. In the current edition of Radio 4's Profile – subject: Jeremy Hunt – Gove says his memory is overwhelmed. "I don't have a perfect recall of all my girlfriends at Oxford, never mind his," says Gove. Still, they'll all remember him, and that's the most important thing.